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Wednesday, August 5, 2015

What’s natural to you? @ Our Spirit

"Romans seems pretty clearly anti-gay:

“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.  Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with man and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.”  Romans 1:26-27

But Romans 1: 26-7  is very much not clear because:

The words natural and unnatural are incorrect translations of the original Greek.
Paul, the author of Romans, was not speaking about gays or lesbians.  He was talking about straight people.
Paul wasn’t talking about love but about being consumed by passion.
What about the words natural and unnatural?

The term often translated to English as natural is the Greek word phooskos, which means customary or characteristic, as in something that is usually done.
What is often translated as unnatural is the Greek para physin, which actually means deviating from the norm or being unconventional.
Gay sex was not the norm in Biblical times.  Just as it is not today.   Not being the norm does not mean being something bad.  It’s estimated that 7 to 10 percent of people are left-handed .  Just because the norm is to be right-handed does not mean the the left-handed people are bad.  The Bible acknowledges that being gay is not the norm.  It does not say that being gay is bad.
Even if one chooses to believe that Romans 1:26-27 is about the sin of choosing unnatural passions, it still does not condemn homosexuals.

Just as a person who’s  heterosexual knows what’s natural to him or her, so does a person who’s homosexual.
Some straight people might think that homosexuality is unnatural.  That’s because it’s not natural to them.
True, no one should give up their natural heterosexuality for homosexuality.
Just as no one should give up their natural homosexuality for heterosexuality."

See more @ Our Spirit